Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

by Danny Meyer

In the end, what’s most meaningful is creating positive, uplifting outcomes for human experiences and human relationships.

Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.

Cultures that care deeply about food often care about life, history, and tradition.

Learning to manage volunteers—to whom, absent a paycheck, ideas and ideals were the only currency—taught me to view all employees essentially as volunteers. Today, even with compensation as a motivator, I know that anyone who works for my company chooses to do so because of what we stand for. I believe that anyone who is qualified for a job in our company is also qualified for many other jobs at the same pay scale. It’s up to us to provide solid reasons for our employees to want to work for us, over and beyond their compensation. I

I believe it became a wonderful restaurant because of its imperfections, which helped build the kind of team character necessary to overcome adversity.

One of the core business lessons I have taken from the continued success of Union Square Cafe is that willingness to overcome difficult circumstances is a crucial character trait in my employees, partners, and restaurants.

I was determined to find a way to “emulsify” those three ingredients to create an ambience of relaxed excellence. I was convinced that I could blend the best of California, Paris, and Rome and have it all ways: refined technical service paired with caring, gracious hospitality, and soulful seasonal cooking.

“We have fun taking service seriously,” he said. “And as for perfection, we just hide our mistakes better than anyone else!” That was a refreshing insight for me as I continued to hone my own version of hospitality.

The beautiful choreography of service is, at its best, an art form, a ballet. I appreciate the grace with which a table can be properly cleared. I admire the elegance with which a bottle of wine can be appropriately opened, decanted, and poured. There’s aesthetic value in doing things the right way. But I respond best when the person doing those things realizes that the purpose of all this beauty at the table is to create pleasure for me.

Understanding the distinction between service and hospitality has been at the foundation of our success. Service is the technical delivery of a product. Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes its recipient feel. Service is a monologue—we decide how we want to do things and set our own standards for service. Hospitality, on the other hand, is a dialogue. To be on a guest’s side requires listening to that person with every sense, and following up with a thoughtful, gracious, appropriate response. It takes both great service and great hospitality to rise to the top.

When the right food is delivered to the right person at the right table at the right temperature at the right time—that’s service. When you see a member of the waitstaff decanting a bottle of wine with care and grace, that’s service. When your empty plate is cleared from the table in a graceful manner, that too is service. When, in answer to your question, the waiter can explain the nuances of the wines on our list, that’s service. But hospitality, which most distinguishes our restaurants—and ultimately any business—is the sum of all the thoughtful, caring, gracious things our staff does to make you feel we are on your side when you are dining with us.

That’s the only table we have available.” I

had already learned that the trick to delivering superior hospitality was to hire geniune, happy, optimistic people. The Ritz-Carlton hotels are deservedly famous for their focus on service; they don’t call it hospitality. But as a guest there, I have occasionally sensed a rote quality in the process, when every employee responds with exactly the same phrase, “My pleasure,” to anything guests ask or say. Hearing “My pleasure” over and over again can get rather creepy after a while. It’s like hearing a flight attendant chirp “Bye now!” and “Bye-bye!” 200 times as passengers disembark from an airplane. Hospitality cannot flow from a monologue. I instruct my staff members to figure out whatever it takes to make the guests feel and understand that we are in their corner. I don’t tell the staff precisely what to do or say in every scenario, though I do have some pet peeves that I don’t ever want to hear in our dining rooms. I cringe when a waiter asks, “How is everything?” That’s an empty question that will get an empty response.

Hospitality can exist only when there is human dialogue.

HAVE ALWAYS VIEWED excellence as a journey rather than a destination.

Unlike a Broadway show, which most people will see just once no matter how much they’ve enjoyed it, a solid restaurant experience should make you want to return for more. There are always more dishes to sample, more waiters by whom to be served, and more tables from which to view the ever-changing scene.

We also make sure to enter into “customer notes” any previous mistakes we made (“overcooked salmon on 7/16, spilled wine on purse 5/12”). We also indicate all “special requests” (“likes table 42; bring hot sauce with food; loves corner table; ice on side always with cocktails; allergic to shellfish; serve coffee after dessert”

Some people thought I was crazy, but for me, hospitality must be enlightened: we must care for our own staff first.

The only way a company can grow, stay true to its soul, and remain consistently successful is to attract, hire, and keep great people. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.

When I walk into any one of our restaurants as its dining room is being set up for service, one of the most lovely sights to me is a waiter lifting a wineglass off the table, holding it up to the light, and checking for smudges. This is not because I’m an unreformed smudge freak, but because someone is showing care for a small detail—smaller even than what the average guest may notice. When an employee does not work out, the problem more often stems from an attitude of “I won’t” rather than “I can’

“People will say a lot of great things about your business, and a lot of nasty things as well. Just remember: you’re never as good as the best things they’ll say, and never as bad as the negative ones. Just keep centered, know what you stand for, strive for new goals, and always be decent.”

All it takes is for one guest to be late, having taken longer than expected to send that last e-mail from the office, to kiss the kids good night, or to finally get a taxi in the rain or cold. One party’s tardiness may cause us to be as much as twenty minutes behind for the next reservation. If two or more tables are running late, we may end up with a pileup at the front door—causing our standards to appear less than excellent. Our job is to adjust to circumstances, and keep the dance flowing with technical precision and artful grace.

ULTIMATELY, THE MOST SUCCESSFUL business is not the one that eliminates the most problems. It’s the one that becomes most expert at finding imaginative solutions to address those problems.

The moment people become managers for the first time, it will be as if the following three things have happened: An imaginary megaphone has been stitched to their lips, so that everything they say can now be heard by twenty times more people than before. The other staff members have been provided with a pair of binoculars, which they keep trained on the new managers at all times, guaranteeing that everything a manager does will be watched and seen by more people than ever. The new managers have received the gift of “fire,” a kind of power that must be used responsibly, appropriately, and consistently.

“Fire is power. We are giving you the gift of this fire. Use it responsibly, appropriately, and consistently. People need it, want it, crave it, and expect it. Use it wisely, and you will become the greatest leader your team ever had. Use it abusively, and you will lose your fire.” Don’t be afraid to lead and to teach. As it does in cooking, fire adds heat, clarifies, and distills the ideas that drive your business to solid results.

By giving more, we’d end up getting more. If you want to be busy, especially in times of scarcity and uncertainty, you cannot accept diminished standards of excellence in even one area. You do everything you possibly can afford to show your staff and guests that you care deeply about improving.

A leader can be charismatic and lack integrity. A leader can be charismatic and have no compassion or empathy. A great leader must repeatedly ask himself or herself this tough question: “Why would anyone want to be led by me?” And there had better be a good number of compelling reasons.

I believe that leadership is not measured just by what you’ve accomplished, but rather by how other people you depend on feel in the process of accomplishing things.

The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.”

“The definition of business is problems.” His philosophy came down to a simple fact of business life: success lies not in the elimination of problems but in the art of creative, profitable problem solving. The best companies are those that distinguish themselves by solving problems most effectively.

I love to hear waiters asking one another, “Is there anything I can do to help you with table 41? Can I help carry any of these plates out?” When there is abundant mutual respect and trust, and people are continually looking for opportunities to help one another, that infectious spirit becomes the culture.

Hospitality starts with the genuine enjoyment of doing something well for the purpose of bringing pleasure to other people.

Providing exceptional hospitality depends on the alertness and instincts of empathetic staff members.

WHY DO I KEEP climbing mountains? Because with a few exceptions there’s always a higher, steeper mountain to scale, and I’m willing to confront all sorts of treacherous conditions, especially when I’m convinced that they’ll lead to exhilarating views from the top.